


black-throated wind

by akisawana



Series: Steal Your Face [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Beacon era, Blood and Gore, Reading Out Loud, Team STRQ - Freeform, Whumptober, being a big sister is exhausting, lannister-style incest, summer rose's b+ team leading, taiyang has Seen Shit, team strq's laundry is terrifying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-14 04:43:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 14,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21009932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisawana/pseuds/akisawana
Summary: Whumptober 2019. Raven-centric. 100% team STRQ era. Individual warnings in chapters.





	1. Shaky Hands

**Author's Note:**

> General warning for blood, tears, heterosexuality, and canon-typical levels of common sense.

Raven can't thread the needle. And she needs to thread the needle, she needs to sew up Tai's shirt. She needs to do this and she keeps missing.

"Qrow," she says when she drops the needle, her brother's name a curse, her brother's _semblance _a curse and the reason she dropped the needle, not her own trembling hands.

Qrow spots the needle on the floor before she does, even half-drunk he's got sharper eyes and steadier hands than she does. He doesn't say anything, presses his flask into her shaky grasp, threads the needle for her, apology for making her drop it.

It's easier to have all her bad luck be her brother's fault. Easier, because she never is tempted to believe she deserves it. Easier, because she knows he cannot help it, and so she must not give him grief over it. And like so many other things, far easier to endure for his sake than her own.

They trade again, flask for needle, and he has knotted the thread for her too.

_This is why I love him,_ she thinks idly as she sets to mending Tai's shirt, tiny yellow stitches as even as she can make them, given the circumstances. Qrow gives her no empty words, not false promises. Just sits next to her and helps where he can and is quiet when he cannot.

He does not say _Taiyang will be okay._

Raven stabs herself with the needle, accident of tear-blurred eyes and shaking hands. There is enough blood on Tai's shirt that a few drops of her own won't make a difference.


	2. Explosion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is almost family friendly!

It hits her like thunder, like shaking earth, like the snap of her own portal. She is not blind she sees too much, she is not deaf she hears all. Instinct has her slicking open a portal to Qrow but he's too close, Taiyang closer, Summer between them still in the choking dust and all of them too far away as she has no eyes to see them, no ears to hear, just thick burning smoke filling her lungs and she coughs and she coughs and she is alone.

(She does not know how to force a portal, but after the explosion at the docks she starts spending more time with Ozpin, making herself love him, adopting him as a father.)

(She will not allow herself to be trapped again.)


	3. Delirium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for roofies, and snakes.

To be an older sister is to be always taking of someone.

Summer and Tai, they're asleep on the couch, leaning against each other. Raven shouldn't begrudge them that. Can't begrudge Tai's tears.

But it's three in the morning, and so Raven is having the conversation with qrow she's had every hour on the hour for the last half- day.

"We're safe," she whispers to him, as he clings to her hand and slurs the question. "We're somewhere safe." She told him, the first few times, more specifically where they were but it's not sticking.

"You drank bad water," she tells him, because it's easier than the truth, because she doesn't want to think about someone using drugs to make Qrow quiet and compliant, doesn't want to think why anyone would want her baby brother quiet and compliant and unable to remember anything for more than ten minutes.

Summer and Tai aren't in his line of sight so they skip that question at least, skip the knife twisting around Summer's heart and the pain drawn in her mouth, skip Taiyang trying to hide his sorrow and his fear lest Qrow try to comfort him with clumsy hands. Qrow doesn't recognize anyone but Raven right now, and that would be bad enough, that's terrible enough to give anyone nightmares for weeks. But he also doesn't recognize danger, and Raven found him following decidedly sketchy guys, doing what they told him to, saying they're his friends, and if she hadn't found him when she did...

She doesn't want to think about it

She won't think about it

"I won't leave you," she promises him, as he clings to her hand with both of his and looks up at her with fever-bright eyes. His grip tightens. Raven has to be careful not to break it. It's so fragile right now, strong as he can be

Qrow nods slowly. "The snakes," he says, as she knows he will. she doesn't argue with him that there are no snakes in the room. "They're hungry"

"They won't get you," she says. "I won't let them"

(He's not worried about her, and the selfishness is pricking at the edges of her thoughts but she shoves it back with everything else she's not thinking about today)

"They're green," he says, "green and yellow and orange," and he continues on and on, describing some horror only he can see. None of these phantom animals move, and that unnerves him most of all. The two of them learned long ago to sit and watch and wait for the right moment. and the phantoms of his own mind know how to just as well, how to arrange teeth just  _ so  _ to be left alone, to be a warning. Qrow sees them so true that Raven doesn't entirely believe them just dreams

"I'm here," she tells him again and again as he spins out phantasms creeping up her leg, and she swears she can feel the whisper of scales against her bare skin. "I'm here. Close your eyes. If you can see them they can see you."

"Won't see them coming," he mutters, his eyes fixed on bare floor and empty air.

"I will." She coaxes him back against her shoulder, her free hand over his eyes. "Close your eyes. It'll be okay in the morning."

It always seems like it takes hours to settle him back into a doze but from his first whispered question to his last heavy nod against her neck never takes more than fifteen minutes.

And then at the top of the hour she must wake him, must be sure she can wake him.

And it starts all over again.


	4. Human Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Large bolder heading towards a person at high speed.

Here's the thing. Raven did it totally, one hundred percent on purpose. Saw the boulder coming and yeah she had plenty of time to move but he was stuck so she braced her arms on either side of him and tried to hide her wince and held her ground. Ignored him whispering her name. Ignored Summer _screaming_ it.

She's so tired.

Tired of picking up the pieces, tired of carrying broken teammates home. Tired of bandages wrapped precisely one finger's width apart. Tired of bright hospital lights and crappy vending machine food at three in the morning.

Tired of other people's blood on her face.

The boulder hits and she grunts. It explodes on impact and her aura shatters right along with it. The pieces fall around her like hail, but there is no blood on her face, no blood _in _his face. The last thing she sees before it all goes gray and sideways is Summer using a piece as a fulcrum to lever his arm free, and Raven smiles.


	5. Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains bad dreams and brief mention of drowning

_Raven, Raven please_, Tai says, begs, casts out like a rope into the dark roiling sea of her nightmares. _Raven, please wake up, please _but she can’t move, can’t find him, can’t lift her hands. It’s like drowning, how it never looks like it should, her hair hanging in her face and she can feel Taiyang brushing it away, feel his hands warm and callused and gentle on her face. _Raven_, he calls one last time, and she wakes with a gasp, reflexively pushes him away, gags and spits on the floor, heaves for breath.

The room is dark and cool and serene, lit only by the dim gold nightlight on the floor near the door. Tai lays a hand on her back, waits for her to lean into him before wrapping his arms around her, pressing his lips against her head. “You’re okay,” he says, as she curls into his warmth. “You’re okay,” he promises, his fingers dragging heavy and gentle through her hair. “You’re okay,” he says, again and again, until she believes him.


	6. Dragged Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains people being tied up and not happy with the situation at all

They got sloppy, they fucked up, they got _cocky_, and they know what’s going to happen next because they may be grown now but part of Raven will always be six years old clinging to her brother’s hand, and now his fingers are tangled with hers. There’s Dust spun in the ropes, something that saps Aura as quick as they can pop it up, and they’re tied to poles so far apart, not far enough. If she pulls, if she damn near dislocates her shoulder, feels nerves about to tear and bones popping loose, if she tries hard enough she can reach Qrow, and he is reaching so despeartely for her, blood running where he refused to be held back.

Everything they have, and then some, and their fingers just touching, Qrow’s always feel cold pressed tight between hers, but his eyes on her face burn.

Their captors are arguing in low voices, what would make them easier to drag back, drugs or chains, and Raven knows they do not have much time. She has an idea, not a proper plan just something that might give her a chance, but she can’t reach the knot from where she is tethered to her brother, can’t try it with him clinging to her like a cliff’s edge, doesn’t dare speak aloud.

All she can do is look in his eyes and hope he can read her mind as she pulls her hand back, as he holds on like grim death, pull harder and he won’t let go, won’t let her go, and she curses him and tries to let him know what she’s doing and he won’t let her go, won’t ever let him go and if they are to have any hope he needs to let her _work._

His heels dig in, she can see his heels digging in, and he won’t let go and she can’t, how can she untangle him, she can’t, what sort of monster would steal this last comfort? The kind that doesn’t want to die, and she closes her eyes so she cannot see, so she can summon strength from a place beyond aura, beyond family. She knows his face anyways, the widening of his eyes, the hitch in his breath as she finally shakes him off, pulls away.

(She’ll apologize later. Or at least she intends to, but if they survive the next five minutes she’ll be fucking amazed.)


	7. Isolation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains no bodily fluids whatsoever.

Raven’s never alone. She can reach out to her family whenever she wishes. To Qrow, to Summer, to Tai. Never alone.  
Not physically.  
This is something entirely different. This is sitting on her bed, watching Summer and Taiyang and Qrow put together something they won’t let her see. LIstening to them talk about alloys and balance and weight, drag coefficient. What is a drag coefficient and why does her brother care so much about it? Taiyang keeps saying numbers and Raven isn’t stupid but she can’t make heads or tails of what pattern they could possibly hold.  
And Summer just sits there, quietly, shuffling papers under other papers when Raven gets too near. Chewing on the end of a pencil when she thinks Raven isn’t looking. Like now, while Tai and Qrow, her boyfriend and her brother, her family, talk about pouring steel. Stupid men. Steel can’t be poured, not unless it’s melted first, and despite what the kitchen looks like they can’t actually melt steel in it.  
They talk, and Summer dreams, and Raven sits on her bed stringing beads, click click click as they knock against each other, the needle flashing silver as she weaves them together.


	8. Stab Wound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blood, pain, bad music taste

Raven doesn’t want to deal with this right now.

So she doesn’t, ignores the blood and the pain, grits her teeth against the white tracing of her bones, refuses to think of the laundry disaster this is. Just puts one foot in front of the other, follows the rest of her team back towards the car. Slumps against Tai in the backseat and tells Qrow if he puts that peppy-ass emo band on, she’ll remove his ability to hear it and anything else.

How an emo band is so chipper is beyond her understanding. But she doesn’t want to hear it. Summer puts on Mistrali bubblegum pop, and Raven thinks about stabbing her team leader, not about the blood that’s insistently leaking down her thigh.

She decides not to pin Summer to the car seat. For one, Summer is driving and Raven would prefer not to have...anyone else behind the wheel. For two, she’d have to move, and she’s not doing that. For three, she just got stabbed and it didn’t slow her down any. Tai and Qrow are bickering about superheros, and they’re safe in the car and Summer thinks speed limits are polite suggestions.

Raven closes her eyes and soaks in the warmth of Tai’s side, the pain in her own. It throbs, the hole in her body, hard enough to rock her to sleep, counterpoint to the roll of the car towards home.


	9. Shackled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains someone not happy with being chained up, and also poor life choices only tangentially related to said chains.

Raven gets the feeling this particular miniboss has a very specific fetish. She’s trying really hard not to know what it is, but the amount of times Qrow’s ended up in this exact situation…

Qrow can’t stand being tied up, tied down, tied to anything, _trapped_. It flips a switch in what passes for his brain, always _always_ sends him into roiling animal panic, and he’s in top form now, thrashing fit to break bones, his eyes rolling wild and white. Tai’s doing his best to pick the lock while Summer and Raven provide crowd control, but Qrow doesn’t even seem to realize he’s _there_, much less trying to help, and Raven can’t. Can’t just stand here and watch. Summer, bless her eyes, knows this, nods in the corner of Raven’s vision, not permission but acknowledgement.

“Qrow,” Raven says, her hands around his wrists without actually crossing the distance between them. The metal cuffs are cold and sharp against her skin, and she has to _work_ to squeeze tighter than them. “Brother, please,” she says gentle as she can make it in front of the whimpers choking his throat. Behind her, she hears the wet thud of a Grimm hit the wall.

“Rae.” Qrow’s fingers wrap around her own wrists in turn, hot as branding irons, tight as love. “Raven.” His eyes are on her face, recognizing her, and there is blood at the corner of his mouth. “I thought.”

“You thought wrong,” Raven tells him, as Tai pauses his lockpicking to fire off six bullets into six skulls. She knows what Qrow must have thought. He’s been gone for three days. Three sunrises, at least. She’s not sure how long he’s been down here in this dark room, under the cold stone.

Qrow shakes his head, says her name again. He doesn’t do too good inside at the best of times, and Raven’s already resigned herself to sleeping under the stars for the next week and a half. At least Qrow’s holding still now, not yanking the padlocked links out from under Tai’s hands. Raven reaches up, his hand still around her wrist, brushes blood-stiff bangs out of his eyes.

“Let’s just get you out of here,” she says, touching his cheek, trying to keep him calm. Trying to calm herself. Three days he’s been gone, and they thought he sulked off to one bar or another, that he’d be home hungover and cranky if they left him space. Three days she’d worried about him, three days Tai and Summer told her he’d be okay without her holding his hand.

And he’d been down here, waiting for her portal. Waiting, and waiting, because she could be at his side in an instant, waiting for her to look for him. For her to want him.

“You won’t leave me,” he says, and it’s more than half a question, and she blinks away the tears threatening. She hears Tai swear, hears a door open, but more important is the frown creasing between her baby brother’s eyebrows.

“I won’t,” she says, cradling his face in her hands. “I won’t,” she says, and Summer is saying something, Tai shoots the lock and none of that is as important as making Qrow understand. “I won’t,” she says, even as she opens a portal with one hand, even as more Grimm come pouring in the room.

She doesn’t let go of him until they are outside under the sun, the breeze kicking dead leaves around their ankles, the birds circling free above


	10. Unconscious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Standard warnings apply

“Summer, damnit,” Raven swears, picking up the white cloak. Her team leader can’t be far, not if this is where the portal spat out.

Her team leader can’t be okay, if her cloak is lying pooled on the ground. “Summer!”

Summer doesn’t answer, and Raven spins in a quick circle. No Grimm near, no enemy aura. No giant woman-eating coconut crabs. Not even an ill-tempered tuna to explain where Summer is and why she’s not answering.

“Summer!” she calls again, tries to feel for Summer’s aura. She should be able to. She could this morning, when Summer’s flicked up before battle. She could yesterday when it broke. She cannot find it now, cannot find the sweet scattered-rose scent.

There’s a silver shotgun-gauntlet under a tree, blackened and twisted. Raven picks it up, glad there isn’t a slender pale arm inside still. A boot, three trees to the left. Spent shells in an arc, the sticky residue of a dead Grimm. No sound, just the spiralling arc of desperate battle, and the rising pitch of her voice as she begs Summer to answer.

Raven finds Summer under where the portal dropped, lying still and silent and shoeless in the rusty bracken. She cradles Summer carefully, and Summer is cold dead weight, and Raven has to hold her own breath to feel the shallow sluggest beat of Summer’s heart.

“Summer, no,” she says, even as she’s opening a portal, even as tears gather in her eyes. “Summer, no,” she says again, even as their boys come through and she snaps at Qrow to stay back, to be her anchor to Beacon. To keep his curse away, though she swallows that thought down.

Summer does not stir in her arms, not when Taiyang slides his arms along Raven’s, not when they lift her limp body. How many times has Tai carried home one of their teammates? How many times has Summer herself spread her cloak over someone to ward off the chill only to have blood-roses bloom? How many times has Raven snapped open an awkward knifed portal, holding on tighter than death with her other hand?

Too many times, and too many times in the future, for sure. Qrow doesn’t need to see Summer like this now. He’s never before, since she’s usually the last one standing and him the first one to stagger. He’s never seen her quiet and hurt, only the aftermath when she’s bandaged and laughing and promising she’s okay.

And Raven will protect him from that as long as she can. It’s the only thing she can protect him from anymore. To never look at Summer and see her death, like she sometimes sees in Tai’s face when he sleeps and does not stir.

Such small victories are all they have.


	11. Stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blood, sewing

Raven likes sewing, for the most part. The rhythm like meditation only useful, the tangible mending of the broken, the little embroidered flourishes turning the tattered and torn into the beautiful. She likes the silver needles darting in and out of the fabric, silver fishes with silk tails drawing together the fabric. She likes patchwork best of all, piecing together bits of cloth in gardens of cotton and wool and linen.

Raven does not like piecing together  _ people _ .

The claw tore three red strips ragged across Taiyang’s hip, down his thigh, the wound bigger than Raven and Summer’s hands put together. Deep too, deep enough to see yellow and white among the red, deep enough to send Raven to her knees next to him, to press Summer’s lips together tight and pale. Taiyang’s head is in Qrow’s lap and Qrow’s eyes are very determinedly on the sky as he chatters about anything and nothing, trying to distract Taiyang.

It was Qrow that made the difference, in the end, Qrow’s luck dropping an entire fucking  _ tree _ on the Alpha and his scythe taking out the other three. Qrow still focused on the enemy when Taiyang went down and Raven couldn’t think of anything but him, but the blood. But the thick vessels were untouched, more of Qrow’s luck robbing the monster of a quick kill.

Now Qrow is keeping Taiyang calm and still, as Summer lines up the torn edges of Tai’s flesh and Raven threads the curved silver needle. Vertical mattress, she’s thinking, to hold him together until aura can work its magic, make sure his leg heals straight and strong. The railroad track scar on his skin will be ugly as hell, but underneath the flesh will knit back together perfectly aligned.

Now she just. Has to stab him in the leg repeatedly.

Summer’s well practiced at this by now, has the site clean and prepped before Raven’s finished with the needle and the light. She’s a good assisstant, steady hands and not prone to nervous chattering like some baby brothers who will remain nameless.

Somehow this never translates into Summer holding the needle. Raven always has to be the one to press the sharp point against warm skin and  _ push,  _ punching through the resistance, feeling the twitch beneath her fingers, the slow and careful slide through Taiyang’s body until it comes back out bloody and slick. Then again on the other side, holding the edge with tweezers so she can see properly inside his body.

There’s a noise, when the skin’s been stretched as far as it will go and then some, a crack of the outer dead layer. Raven wonders if Summer can hear it. If Taiyang can hear it.

The knot she could tie in her sleep, and she does tie it one-handed, the silk almost invisible against her knuckles. Summer snips it free, and then she starts again, trying to find the rhythm.

This isn’t a hem to take up, a patch cut neatly to cover a hole, though. This isn’t a straight seam of stitches spaced evenly, running through the fabric with only a knot at the start and end. This is a ragged riverbed to cross, every step considered on its own, the bridging filament laid out according to something other than math. Her fingers cannot make the arc quicker than her thoughts.

This isn’t woven threads, knit cloth. This is  _ Taiyang,  _ who grunts and flinches at every hole she makes, and she must make holes, there is no weave to find. This is skin she knows the taste of, stained with blood she knows the sound of. This is a body she knows the rhythm of, and she cannot forget it as she closes the wound with eighty four knots black as her own hair. 


	12. Don't Move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a super-violent one

There’s sweat running itchy down the back of Qrow’s neck, but he doesn’t dare try to shake it off, doesn’t dare move even as his arms are screaming and his hands are long past clammy-numb. “You’re heavy,” he murmurs to Raven, even though her weight is the  _ easiest  _ number in this equation.

Raven’s not as light as Summer but she’s nowhere near Taiyang’s dense muscle, and even though she can’t reach the floor, even though the only thing she can reach is Qrow’s own shoulders, he could hold her up all day if he had to. He could stand here, one arm awkward around her thighs and her fingers twisted in the back of his shirt until the shattered moon was whole again. He can, he reminds himself. He can do this.

Raven doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at him with eyes red and dark as blood spilled in the moonlight. As red and dark as the blood on her shirt, on the long jagged metal piercing her, drip-drip on the floor, brushed against Summer’s white cloak, bright on Taiyang’s hands.

“Just don’t move,” Qrow says, more to himself than to her. He doesn’t know what inside her is hurt, how they’re going to get her off this fishhook, how she’s not dead. It’s almost okay, this liminal space between the first shock of seeing her, and whatever will happen next. Qrow doesn’t need to know more than he does, which is that Summer and Taiyang are very insistent that they have to do it the right way or bad things will happen. All Qrow needed to be told was to hold Raven, and don’t let her move. He’ll let them worry about the rest.

Raven doesn’t have any snappy replies for him.

Qrow isn’t afraid of much, isn’t afraid of getting her blood all over him, isn’t afraid of sharp metal trying to bite him like it ran right through her. He wasn’t afraid of the bullets and blades earlier, and he isn’t afraid of the sounds he can hear on the other side of the barricaded door now.

Raven doesn’t have any snappy replies for him and that scares him.

She’s not dead, yet. He can feel her heart, too fast and weakening against his own. He can feel her breath across his skin, tinged with iron and copper. She’s not dead and he holds her as tight and as still as he can, and is thankful she isn’t shaking.

“Just don’t move,” he says to her, pressing his forehead against hers, blocking out the acrid gunpowder air, the room too cold and hot by turns, the soft murmurs of their teammates trying to figure out a solution. Qrow’s no help for that, never is. That’s what Raven does, swoop in at the nick of time and save the day and make everything okay.

This is what Qrow is good at. Holding fast, his world narrowed to what’s inside Raven’s hair black and long and sticking to their skin. Staying close, his arms tight around her, their bodies slotting together like two halves of a whole. Swallowing down his fear and telling her, again and again, that it will be okay as long as they don’t move.


	13. Bound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains, again, someone tied up and not having a good time.

This is getting_ ridiculous_.  
“This, this is why I don’t believe in exposure therapy,” Taiyang says conversationally, swapping out his empty cartridge. He indicates Summer, failing to calm down a hyperventilating Qrow. “This is what, four times?”  
“Six,” Raven corrects him absently. So far she’s failed to force the lock, pick it, melt it, and have it magically burst open under the sheer weight of her annoyance. Why can’t this miniboss go back to Dust-infused rope? “Ice isn’t working.” She doesn’t know what else to do. Can’t think with all the noise Qrow is making.  
“We could butter him,” Taiyang suggests, tapping his fingers on his weapon. “Slip him right out.”  
“Did you bring any?”  
“No,” Tai admits. He considers the chains binding Qrow to the pole, tipping his head for a new angle. “Hey, Qrow? Can you give us some slack, buddy?”  
Qrow continues to caterwaul, and Raven rolls her eyes. He has no faith in his team. It’s starting to be insulting. Summer isn’t helping the situation any either, her hands fluttering uselessly when Qrow needs something to hang onto.  
“Portal?” Tai suggests next. That’s what they ended up doing last time, slicing the chain with the edge of her portal and removing the cuffs once they were back home.  
“Only if he wants to lose his hands.” The miniboss, being far too into this scenario of Qrow chained up and helpless, is constantly evolving the bonds. She can’t make one small enough to not catch some part of his body. “Why didn’t we bring bolt cutters?”  
Tai shrugs. “We could go back and get them.”  
The thought of leaving him here, the lack of another plan, the ridiculousness of the situation, all of it coalesces into a ball of thorns in her chest. “Qrow, damnit,” she spits.  
His head snaps around to her so fast, it’s a wonder he doesn’t break his neck. “Raven,” he says, and his voice is so small and broken, so hurt and scared.  
Raven makes several executive decisions, opens a portal to Ozpin but doesn’t go through. “Tai, go get them,” she orders. “Summer, _move_.”  
Technically Summer’s the leader. Raven doesn’t care. Qrow was hers _first_, and Summer doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. Raven shoulders her aside, gets right in Qrow’s eyes, puts her arms around him, her fingers digging into his skin too sharp to be anything but real. “Breathe, Qrow,” she says, and he is already calming under her hands. She holds steady. “Breathe,” she says again, and he takes one shuddering breath, then another.


	14. Tear-Stained

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains meditation going south

Raven never sits still, Taiyang has noticed. More than that. She always has somewhere to go, something she needs to do, some project to fill whatever downtime they might find. As carefully as he watches her, he’s never seen her slow down, much less pause. Raven hits the ground running and doesn’t stop until she passes out, usually over a book.  
In retrospect, he should have known she was doing that on purpose, keeping her hands and eyes and mind busy for a reason. He should have known meditation was a bad suggestion. He should have known that Raven built her walls up for damn good reason, and letting them down would end in tears, silent crystal ones staining her cheeks.  
He curses himself for a fool, even as he reaches out to her. She opens her eyes at his touch, and they are pools of pain and bloodless sorrow. “I’m sorry, Raven,” he says, drawing her close to him, all the way to his lap where he can cradle her with his whole body, hold her safe. “I’m so sorry.”  
She doesn’t say anything, but her shoulders hitch with one sob, another. Why, Tai doesn’t know and doesn’t presume to ask. He’s watched her so carefully and he knows so little, just enough to fear asking. Not for what she would tell him, he is not so sheltered. For what hurt the questions might cause her.  
Instead, he holds her tight, tells her over and over it’s okay, there’s nothing to cry over. It tastes sour on his tongue, to tell her that her feelings don’t matter, but it’s how she comforts Qrow, what Qrow whispers to her in the dead of night, it’s what she wants to hear. She does not reach for him, curls herself smaller and smaller, and he wraps around her, lets her know he cares enough to chase her. To fight for her.  
Taiyang watches, so carefully, because he loves her, because he never wants to give her reason to cry. But there is so much there, and he has earned so little, and so many times her tears spill wet and glistening because of him.


	15. Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the incestuous one. Lannister-style.

There are so many scars on Qrow’s skin, white and thin and hard to see, and Raven knows them all. Raven remembers the blood, remembers washing it away, remembers it beading up red and glossy. Raven remembers the time before they learned to use their aura, before his semblance manifested itself as weapons breaking and muddy ground giving way under someone’s feet.  
  
Qrow’s her baby brother but not her little brother, bigger than her for as long as they can remember. Tai and Summer think she’s overprotective of him, she knows. That she dotes on him too much, babies him too much. Forgives him too much. They don’t understand.  
  
Every scar on his body is her fault.  
  
They think her semblance is like Summer’s, that at her core she wants nothing more than to swoop in and save the ones she loves. That her soul was made to stand at her family’s side with sword in hand.  
  
They’re wrong.  
  
That’s not what she does at all.  
  
There’s a constellation of scars on the back of his leg, dark and round and older than his teeth. They arc almost like a bite, like something sharp once dug into his flesh, like there was the wet mouth of a mindless animal clamped around.  
  
Raven knows the truth, knows it was not sharp and cold but blunt and hot, that it was not water but fire, that it was no natural instinct but laughing men. Raven watched it happen from the shadows, dug her fingers into her own leg to match. That didn’t leave a scar. Only Qrow has their history carved into his skin.  
  
Did Qrow tell Summer what happened? Did she ask? Raven doesn’t know. Qrow would have so many more scars if he didn’t have so much aura, she’s seen him take so many blows meant for her. Sometimes she wonders if she’s only seeing what should be there. Sometimes she runs her hands over his body and she can feel all the times he kept her safe.  
  
She knows his body as well as her own, it might as well be her own as hers belongs to him in turn. His face pressed against her soft places, his fingers tangled in her own, his knee between hers. His blood smeared by her hands.  
  
Her semblance is to come back to him, again and again, to be safe in his arms.  
  
They fit together like nobody else, their broken edges matching up like a shattered plate. Summer’s too short, Taiyang too wide, and the differences are what make it exciting and real unlike the dream of Qrow against her, sheathed inside her. Perfectly matched, two parts of a whole, and there is no shifting, no twisting to lock together. Only stillness, and every one of his breaths is air from her lungs, and their hearts beating in time.  
  
Even like this he’s covering her, holding her safe under his own body. His mouth, soft over the thin skin of her neck, his feet hooked over hers. His hand tucked against her chest, and his ever-cold fingers slowly warming.  
  
Of course she babies him, of course she dotes on him. Of course she forgives him the drinking and the fighting. Of course she never eats until she sees he has food, can’t sleep without the blanket tucked around his shoulders. It’s not repayment, exchange, anything like that. It’s nothing civilized.  
  
Blood dries and clots and scabs, to protect the split skin underneath, yet no-one thinks the skin takes advantage of the blood. It’s silly, to think one part of a whole could be in debt to another.  
  
Qrow protects her to preserve himself, and she takes care of him to keep herself safe, two bodies, two souls and one self. Since before they were born they have been woven together, and every scar on Qrow’s skin belongs to her as well.


	16. Pinned Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dropped a _real_ big rock on Raven here, there's blood and bad puns.

Raven has the coolest semblance, full stop, everyone else is jealous. It lets her go halfway across the planet in the blink of an eye. She can send a whole army to bail out her brother with a flick of her wrist. (Well, Professor Goodwitch and her overcaffeinated TA Oobleck, which works out to the same thing.) She can’t be caged, can’t be held against her will, and she never needs rescue.

Almost never.

There are exactly two drawbacks to her semblance. The first, it needs aura, so when she needs it the most, she can’t actually use it.

The second is that a portal has limited usefulness if she can’t walk through it.

So she’s stuck under the rock for the foreseeable future. Tai brought her a cup of tea. Summer and Qrow are getting mathematical. She can’t even feel half her body anymore, which is a blessing in disguise.

Can’t feel the bones grinding together, slowly crushed by the weight of unyielding stone, can’t feel the icy sharp grip of granite as it pins her down, holds her in place, helpless unable to run unable to fight can’t do anything but sit and wait can’t even curl herself, brace for the blow…

“Hey,” Tai says. His eyes are blue and warm. She never knew how warm blue could be before she met him. “Hey Raven.”

She murmurs acknowledgment. It is very tiring to be under a rock. She never thought about it before, but it makes sense. The rock is so very heavy.

He strokes her hair again. She likes his hands in her hair. Feels right. “You still with us?”

She blinks at him, confused. “Where could I go?”

He smiles at her, brighter than the sun he’s named for. “If you wander off for some food, I pumice not to tell anyone.”

She stares up at him. Decides to ignore the pun, because she lost count somewhere around eight and maybe if she stops giving him a reaction he’ll stop making them.“I’m not hungry.”

“It’s been ages since breakfast,” he points out. If he says anything about rocky road ice cream she will spit on him. “But I guess you’ve lost your apatite.”

She doesn’t know what that even means. She just knows it’s another pun from the goofy grin on his face. She loves that grin, so stupid and honest and open and real.

Then the whole world goes grey for a second, a scream torn out of her half-crushed chest, she doesn’t even know what happened except Tai is yelling, Qrow is yelling, she can feel her legs again and they are fire she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe

And then, suddenly, she can once more, sucks in great gulps of air and ignores the stabbing pain, the electric lace of aura reknitting cracked ribs. Behind her closed eyelids colors she cannot name spiral in circles, and when she finally forces them open it takes a few seconds for the two Taiyangs to coalesce.

“This sucks,” she informs him. Once Qrow and Summer finish moving the rocks, she’ll be back on her feet like it never happened. Nothing to show the hours she’s spending in her own personal hell, with only Taiyang’s light to keep the darkness at the corners of her eyes from creeping further.

“My sediments exactly.”

Raven groans. The puns are the worst part.


	17. Stay With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains anaphylaxis

The silver light no longer impresses Raven. She is far too practical for such things anymore.  
  
It’s still effective, Summer still takes down the Nucka-whatsit when nothing else could have. They look like angel wings emerging from her eyes, lovely and strong. Silver is not white, is not grey, is something entirely different and Raven only understood that once she saw Summer’s light freeze Grimm into stone. The first time, Raven was too awed to move for long minutes afterwards.  
  
Now, the exact opposite. From the first glimmer, standing like tears in Summer’s eyes, Raven is moving. Portal p to Taiyang in the collapsing building, snatch him out of midair with one hand, second portal with the other, and set him next to Qrow, who’s still vertical and somehow still has all his blood inside his body, which is frankly a rarer sight than Summer channeling ancient magic. The three of them huddled together, arms around each others’ shoulders and eyes squeezed shut against the glare. Tai’s heart steady under her palm, Qrow’s breathing harsh as his namesake. The shockwave rolling over them like thunder. Then back to where Summer sways in front of the dead beast, catch her before she hits the ground.  
  
“Stay with me,” she murmurs. There is no visible wound on Summer’s body, her aura still warm against Raven’s own. Silver eyes come from a different source. She scoops Summer up in her arms, Summer is so tiny. So small and bright and brave.  
  
“Naptime,” Summer mutters, reaching up to wrap her fingers around the silver charm hanging from Raven’s neck. The sharp corners bite into her skin, keeping her awake.  
  
“Not just yet.” Their boys have headed off already, back to where they’ve set up camp in the ruin of an old bar, with a hearth intact and two walls to shelter them. Tai’s got the fire lit by the time she lays Summer down on her sleeping bag, and Qrow’s digging out the tea from Tai’s backpack. Summer is cold as ice, and Raven wraps herself around Summer’s shivering frame, lets Summer lay her head on Raven’s shoulder.  
  
Summer says something, incoherent. Her lips are blue, her breath labored, and when Raven pulls her collar down, there is red racing up her chest.  
  
Raven curses. “Tai, epi,” she snaps, already shoving Summer’s cloak aside. Qrow looks up from the teapot but she waves him back; Summer will want something hot to drink when she’s awake enough.  
  
This isn’t the first time Summer’s eyes have rebounded on her, closed her lungs and flushed her skin. This isn’t the first time Raven’s held her leg still while Taiyang stabs her with the needle -_blue to the sky, orange to the thigh_\- like it’s not fucking obvious which end is pointy. This isn’t the first time Raven’s held Summer up as her breath comes fast and shallow, this isn’t the first time she’s wrapped her hand around Taiyang’s behind Summer’s back, Summer’s head resting on their arms. This isn’t the first time she’s repeated, “c’mon Summer, stay with us, keep breathing,” counted Summer’s heartbeat fragile and fast against her own, slower and stronger by degrees. This isn’t the first time Qrow’s waited for the all-clear nod to kneel in front of her with hot tea and warm blanket, Tai helping her steady it as she sips. This isn’t the first time Raven’s flipped the second dose end over end in her hand, waiting to see if the first was enough.  
  
And it won’t be the last.


	18. Muffled Screams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains broken bones

Aura is great. Aura is amazing. Aura is why none of the team is dead.  
  
Aura is also a privilege Summer is about six seconds from losing. Her arm is perfectly healed. Her arm is at a seventy degree angle and her fingers are turning purple.  
  
Raven looks up from Summer's arm and Taiyang catches her gaze, his jaw set hard and cold. He knows what needs to be done. She knows what needs to be done. Summer may be the leader in the midst of battle but off it...At least Taiyang has a few brain cells knocking around in his thick skull. Raven even can shower without worrying what chaos she'll return to.  
  
"Qrow," she says, still looking at Taiyang. "Go, make sure no Grimm are coming."  
  
Qrow has Summer's other hand between both of his, their knees just touching black against white. He does not let go. "What do you mean, make sure no Grimm are coming?" he echoes. "We just killed them all."  
  
"We're about to call a _whole bunch more _down." Taiyang takes Summer's hand from Qrow, his eyes still on Raven's face. This is going to _suck_. "Go get ready to kill them."  
  
"Far away," Raven adds. "I don't want to hear them coming."  
  
Qrow gets it, finally, leans forward and pecks a kiss against Summer's mouth. Summer murmurs "be careful," like Qrow is ever anything but.  
  
He takes his flask with him, selfish twit.  
  
Summer's fingers have swelled too much to move already, which comforts Raven. Not because she enjoys the thought of Summer in pain, but because it is confirmation they must do this. Raven runs her fingers up Summer's arm, finds where the ulna and radius healed crooked and too close together, pinching the vein. "Here," she says, tapping Summer's skin. Summer flinches. Taiyang does not.  
  
"Say when," he says, calm as ever. Raven wonders why he's not this calm all the times since he can _apparently_ turn it off and on at will. Now is not the time to ask.  
  
Now is the time to sit behind Summer, brace Summer's body against her own. They wait for Qrow to get out of range. Raven looks down at Summer and gives Qrow thirty more seconds.  
  
Then she nods to Taiyang, and Taiyang nods back, and when Summer opens her mouth to scream Raven jams her fingers inside.  
  
Taiyang rebreaks Summer's arm with terrifying fluidity, Summer's cries muffled by Raven's hand. Not many people could have done that, could hold the pieces in place as Summer's aura flicks over to heal again, as Summer shakes and screams in Raven's arms. Not many people can force themselves to do such things. But Taiyang's heart is as deep as the ocean that matches his eyes, and there are terrifying dark things where the sun does not reach.  
  
Taiyang is _terrifying_ and yet Raven can no more force herself to fear him than she can force herself to break Summer's arm.  
  
Summer swallows around Raven's fingers and goes limp. Taiyang stands up and wipes his palms off on his pants. "I"ll go get Qrow," he says. Summer nods, her breath fast and shallow.  
  
She'll breathe easier when Qrow is back, Raven knows. "Don't let him," Raven tells Tai. "You know."  
  
"I know," Tai says, and then he's gone, leaving Raven to rub Summer's back and say whatever soothing nonsense comes to mind. It might take Tai a little bit to find Qrow, maybe Raven should have gone instead. But she doesn't really want to know how far out he went. She wants to believe he didn't go farther than his semblance reaches, that he understood and only went far enough to not hear Summer's screams. Raven will protect him from that far longer than she'll protect other people from his misfortune.


	19. Asphyxiation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains bronchitis

Later, if you ask Raven why she loves Taiyang, this is near the top of the list. First, if it’s chronological.

The twins are from Mistral where it is hot and most sickness is gastrointestinal, which is a fancy word for “shitting your guts out and moving on with your life.” Broken bones and moderate dehydration and malaria? Nothing they can’t deal with. Qrow suddenly struggling to _ breathe, _that’s something new, that’s called bronchitis, a word Raven’s never heard before and she doesn’t like how it crackles in her mouth.

It starts when Qrow, shy gentle Qrow who thinks everything is his fault, who tries to make everyone happy, in a school with more students than their entire tribe, takes an uncharacteristic nap one afternoon and wakes up gasping. Raven tries so hard to take care of him, she does, but he insists on hiding from her damnit, why must he make it harder than it is and now he can’t _ breathe. _

Tai isn’t helping (not yet), asking questions like not being able to breathe isn’t _ enough _ and Raven is ready to strangle him when Summer brings Professor Olive to the dorm. The professor is supremely unimpressed and calls it a cold, tells Qrow not to come to class tomorrow, and Raven is about ready to cry at how little this woman cares.

Now, she’s Raven fucking Branwen so instead she gives the woman her best “eat shit and die” look and says, “We’re handling it.” A total lie but clearly this fuckwit isn’t going to help.

Raven’s not stupid. She knows Qrow isn’t dying. She knows what death looks like, and this isn’t it. But she’s not stupid and she’s afraid of him getting _ worse _. What could be worse than coughing fit to break a rib, she’s not sure. She’ll know it when she sees it. She doesn’t want to see it.

Summer drags Taiyang down to the cafeteria to get dinner, for themselves and the twins. Then she takes him somewhere else, Raven’s not sure where but she’s grateful. Qrow needs to rest, to sleep, but if Taiyang is there Qrow _ will _ ask, “what if your legs didn’t know they were legs,” and Tai _ will _try to answer it.

So Summer tosses Raven the remote, and Raven puts on cartoons, and refuses to talk to him until he falls asleep, propped up against her shoulder.

  
  


Qrow wakes and it’s dark and he can’t breathe right and he’s coughing and Raven’s not there _ where is his sister? _

“Easy, easy, _ xiao niao _,” Tai says, and in the glow of the moon Qrow can just make out Tai’s golden hair, the cup of water he’s offering. Not quite the arm that’s suddenly around Qrow’s shoulders, and he flinches, but Tai just murmurs something else Qrow can’t understand and tucks Qrow more firmly against his side.

There’s cool water, and a pair of pills Qrow doesn’t argue against simply because he trusts Taiyang, and a few deep breaths that don’t actually fill his lungs before Qrow croaks, “Raven?”

“Sleeping,” Tai says, his thumb making cool circles on Qrow’s arm. “I promised her I’d sit up with you. Qrow would protest, he means to protest, but Taiyang is solid and comforting and good as gold, and he says “I know better than to break a promise to Raven.”

“She’d break your legs,” Qrow agrees. He’s cold but Tai is colder, and that means something. Means something like how Raven sleeping on the other side of the room and Taiyang in her place means something. But his brain is dripping down the back of his throat and he can barely string a complete sentence together through the knives in his skull so.

So.

So Taiyang takes his temperature with the nifty head thing, asks him if he wants to go back to sleep, and Qrow says no, even though he means yes, because every time Qrow wakes up he feels worse. Tai lifts the remote, turns the cartoons back on, lets Qrow lean against his chest and doesn’t say anything but “here, _ xiao niao _, Summer made this up for you.”

It’s a thermos of hot tea, sweet and lemony, with a generous amount of rye whiskey. Qrow sips it, and wonders what _ xiao niao _ means, but it’s not important.

What’s important is the warm drink that really does help and Tai’s arms steady around him, bright colors on the dim television screen and Raven safe with Summer, and without meaning to Qrow falls back asleep.

Later, if you ask Raven why she loves Taiyang, this is near the top of the list. First, if it’s chronological. The night he stayed up with Qrow and kept track of his fever on a scrap of paper and Raven slept easy knowing she could trust Taiyang with her most precious.


	20. Trembling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clean as the driven snow. The prompts get looser as I go.

Raven’s hands are shaking so badly, her handwriting is even more illegible than usual. In the textbook, the words look like carved beads, intricate enough to be different, simple enough to be instantly recognizable, to some people. In her notebook, each carefully drawn letter floats unmoored from the next, and she can hardly tell where one word ends and the next begins even though she wrote it herself that very morning. And now, she cannot even manage to write, the lines crossing themselves in all the wrong places, extra letters appearing for no reason. It is very late, and she is very tired.

She needs more coffee.

This comes second nature to the other students, who learned to read and write when they were children. Who were taught to read and write by parents when Raven was learning how not to die. This is a task children manage and she can, she  _ will _ . If she has to sound out every letter on the text book’s six hundred pages, she will learn this. And she will ace the test and not flunk out of Beacon and return to the tribe a failure.

She is very tired but she cannot sleep, not yet. She will drink more coffee, even though her heart is tripping over itself in her chest and her leg cannot stop bouncing. She won’t sleep until she knows history backwards and forwards. 

They’ll only have a few hours for the test, and it takes so long for Raven to write. The second half of her sentence forgotten by the time she finishes with the start, concentrating so hard on getting the shapes right she has no thought to spare for what she is writing. It’s enough to make a grown man cry, but she is no man and she will make it happen.

Just fifteen minutes for coffee, sweet and dark, and practice while she sips it. Her hands a trembling so, and she needs to drink it slowly lest she spills it down her chin.

Some things she can write with ease now. Her own name, tight curves like her swordblade. Qrow’s name, and he insisted on spelling it different than the bird for reasons she understands too well. Summer’s name, same as the season, soft as the flower.

She cannot write Taiyang’s name. She can make the letters of Vale that sound it out, but it is not his  _ name.  _ His name is another language altogether, squares of knife-slashes that run down the page rather than across it. His name is the  _ great-light little-dragon  _ and while he writes for other people in the block letters she is learning so painfully, he writes for himself in some other art that hangs beautifully down the page like ivy, that blossoms from the side like morning glories. Taiyang writes two languages, and Raven wonders sometimes what her name would look like, growing from his brush.


	21. Laced Drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drug use

One minute everything is normal, the club almost enjoyable, then there is the taste of seven in her ears and the world tips sharply left, bounces back like a rubber ball but it isn’t right and Raven doesn’t know what to do so she does what she always does when things go wrong.  
  
Opens a portal and stumbles through.  
  
Qrow catches her on the other side, strong and solid arms around her, his shirt soft under her fingers and it takes a minute for her ears to follow, for her to understand his words.  
  
She mumbles something incoherent against his skin. He is picking the pins out of her hair, and she tips her head to the side so he can reach them.  
  
“I told you that place was sketchy,” he says, his voice impossibly fond, his fingers gentle as they unhook her jewelry.  
  
She hums in agreement, though she still thinks Qrow didn’t come along for no reason other than he just doesn’t like being around that many people. They’ve certainly found him in some real dives.  
  
Usually he stays home and drinks alone, though, and Raven is starting to see the charms of pouring your own drinks. She’s not too worried, though. Partly whatever was in that glittery wine, mostly because Qrow’s hands are anchored on her arms, he’s coaxing her towards the nest they built. Impossible to be afraid when Qrow is cool silver water over her skin.  
  
She doesn’t sit down so much as the mattress rises up to take her, and she lays back as it swirls a slow lazy circle. Qrow kneels in front of her and unlaces her boots with deft fingers. He’s always so careful, so gentle, so afraid of hurting her. He drags his fingers over her calves, rubbing the red lines and his fingers are cold but her skin sings warm at his touch and she sighs.  
  
The world is spinning but he is the axis and that is enough, that is all she needs. He lays down next to her, shielding her. The line between them blurs as Raven lets her body mold against his, as he fits around her curves. His fingers trace the side of her face, again and again. She closes her eyes and lets their heartbeat rock her, spiraling through the cosmos.


	22. Bound II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains the miniboss' Qrow-bondage fetish

Some teams name their combo attacks. Team STRQ names the too-frequent occurrence of “freeing Qrow from that sonovabitch miniboss’ bondage fetish.” Tai has named the procedure Freebird, complete with air guitar, and Raven absolutely hates it.  
  
Not the name, though she refuses to use it. She hates that this is a thing that keeps happening, that try as they might they can’t stop him from ending up chained to a wall six feet or more underground. That someone knows how to hurt him so well and she can’t stop it. It’s the only time he ever cries, these days.  
  
“Hey,” she says, wiping the tears off his cheeks. He’s trying so hard to be good, to hold still and let Taiyang work, to not panic and scream. “We’ll get you out. We always do.”  
  
Qrow nods, silently, his eyes wide and scared and dark, Raven’s not sure if it’s worse every time or if she just always forgets, inbetween. His shoulders hitch with one sob, with another.  
  
“Imagine what the dude would get up to if he _wasn’t _constantly devising new ways for this,” Taiyang offers around a mouthful of lockpicks. “Frankly, Qrow, I’m glad he’s focused on you.” Summer calls him several choice words but Taiyang keeps going. “You take it like a champ.”  
  
Qrow sags against Raven, hides his face against her neck. She sighs and wraps her arms around him, holds him together while he shakes fit to fly apart. “He’s right,” Raven says, too quiet for Summer to hear. She knows what’s running around in his head, what he’s getting wrong. “You’re so strong, and this won’t break you. I won’t let it.” His hands clench around her hair, but he doesn’t pull. That’s good.  
  
“I _know_,” he growls into her shoulder. “I _know _you’ll rescue me and I _know _you won’t let me get hurt, I _know _you’re coming, I _know _and it doesn’t stop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fucked up and did "bound" twice.


	23. Bleeding Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains most of Taiyang's blood relocated to Raven's hands

Most of the time, it’s Raven taking care of Qrow, and he neither knows nor cares what everyone else thinks of how she treats him, mother sister wife in one. Most of the time he is content to follow her orders. To trust her.  
  
This is not one of the times.  
  
Her hands are sticky with Taiyang’s blood as he holds them under the warm water. Her hands are limp in his when he rubs soap over them, slow white circles washing away the red. Her hands are trembling against his, and in the mirror her eyes are bright and liquid.  
  
Taiyang lost a lot of blood, and it’s splashed up to her elbows, over her shirt, across her skirt. There’s a smear up on her face, where she tucked her hair behind her ear. Qrow rubs it away gently, tries not to think of it as erasing Taiyang. The greater part of Taiyang’s blood is on Raven’s skin.  
  
Raven can’t open a portal if her aura’s broken.  
  
He doesn’t say anything as he rinses the suds with handfuls of water. What is there to say? All they do now is wait, wait for Taiyang to wake up. Wait for Summer to return from the infirmiry with news of him. Wait to find out if he’s dead.  
  
There’s dried blood on Raven’s lip, her own where she bit down on whatever words almost came out of her when they staggered in. Taiyang is heavy, but Raven is strong enough to carry him. Raven is strong enough to carry Qrow.  
  
Raven is caged in his arms, pinned between the sink and his body, and he doesn’t know how to carry her through this. Doesn’t know what to say, as he meets her eyes in the mirror, twin pools of blood in her too-pale face. They look like the drops on the tile floor underneath Tai. Taiyang had been so pale, Qrow didn’t know Taiyang could get that white.  
  
Qrow doesn’t know what to do, how to fix this. He would open up his veins and pour his own blood into Tai if he could -the medics wouldn’t take more than a pint, though. He doesn’t know how to shake the dead cast off Raven’s eyes, so instead he washes the blood off her body with careful strokes. The blood Taiyang shed to keep Raven safe, and it should have been Qrow’s blood. It should have been, because keeping her in one piece is Qrow’s job. Making her smile is Taiyang’s; only with him now is she alive and laughing and Qrow almost dares to believe happy. Taiyang should be here now, washing Qrow’s blood out of Raven’s hair. He’d know the words to make her believe it would be okay.  
  
He runs his hands over her arms, as long as he can, hoping that if he’s slow enough Taiyang will wake and come in to see what is taking them so long. Holds her hands under the water until it is icy cold, and she doesn’t seem to mind but Taiyang had no heat in him and Qrow doesn’t want the reminder. The only clean towel is Summer’s, old and soft, and then he changes her like a doll into an equally old soft tshirt that falls to her knees.  
  
It was Taiyang’s, before it was hers, and it still smells like him, like cold tea and cheery flame. Taiyang still hasn’t moved, still lying atop the bed like a corpse laid out on a bier. Summer raised her head when the twins come out of the bathroom, but she doesn’t say anything. What is there to say?  
  
Nothing, as Qrow combs Raven’s damp hair out. Nothing, as he slides to the floor next to her, his arms around her. Nothing as Summer joins them on Raven’s other side. Nothing, as they watch the moon’s shattered shadow arc across the wall, the only sound Taiyang’s slow breathing, the tink of Qrow’s flask.


	24. Secret Injury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains a shitty fight scene. Why am I allowed to write fight scenes?

Qrow goes down first, of course, distracting Summer which means Raven has to jump in to cover Taiyang and get her side opened up for her trouble. It hurts like dicks, of course, but she has more important things to do, like keep Tai alive because he’s the only one who can hit the griffons from the ground and grab Qrow’s unconcious form, cursing under her breath because with him out of the fight the griffons just got a whole lot more accurate.  
  
Raven hates pest control missions.  
  
At least with Qrow staying put next to Taiyang she can cover both of them when the griffons descend to finish off the team. She has exactly fifteen seconds to retie her obi, folding the cut end under to act as a makeshift bandage. Taiyang watches her do it out of the corner of his eye, and she realizes he doesn’t know she’s been hit, thinks she’s just tucking away tattered strips of cloth so she doesn’t get tangled.  
  
Good. If he knows she’s been hurt, if Summer finds out, that will distract them at best. Summer might even try to abort the mission, and Raven won’t be the cause of the failure. She’s kind of surprised Summer didn’t sound the retreat when Qrow toppled over. Raven certainly wouldn’t have, since it was his own hungover fault, but Summer’s softer.  
  
Side benefit to Qrow lying with broken aura next to Taiyang number one: she doesn’t have to worry about him. Side benefit to Qrow lying with broken aura next to Taiyang number two: Taiyang’s gone from terrifyingly accurate to supernaturally so; he can switch from explosive headshots to the lighter bullets that go in the eye and then rattle around the armored skull, liquifying the brain. They die quicker, but the shot is so hard to make, Taiyang doesn’t dare do it with Qrow around.  
  
(Raven will kill anyone before she lets them say that out loud, except Tai and Summer, who have earned the right to say it and who also would be right next to her if someone else did.)  
  
It’s not quite enough; they’re too skilled for bad luck to make much of a difference, and the battle is noticeably harder without Qrow’s scythe. Raven’s sword flashes slower, too, her side aching. The quicker they take out these last six-fucking-teen griffons, the quicker she can get back to town and sit down.  
  
By the time Summer puts both fists against under the last one’s chin and empties her gauntlets into its head, Taiyang is sitting on the ground out of aura and bullets and Qrow’s still asleep, selfish twit that he is. Raven is standing out of sheer willpower alone, unable to mirror Summer’s victorious smile. Taiyang hoists Qrow over his shoulder, Raven folds Harbringer down, and they start the long hike back to where the terrorized villagers are hiding.  
  
She’s cold by the time they get back, and the ground sways dangerously under her feet. But she can’t rest just yet. She has to make sure Qrow’s taken care of, then drag Taiyang into the light so she can check the still-bleeding cut on his forehead. At least he doesn’t give her a hard time, and she kneels in front of her pack, intending to find the tape.  
  
But it’s very warm all of a sudden, and her hands are very far away, and she can hear Taiyang yelling, and she’s still trying to puzzle out the words when the black rises up in her vision, pulls her down into its depths.


	25. Humiliation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains reading aloud in class.

The class is sat in alphabetical order, so Raven is sixth. Technically she should be seventh, but she swapped with Qrow so he could have the aisle seat, and the teacher didn’t care _that_ much. The class is sat in alphabetical order and Raven is number six and that means Raven always reads the sixth paragraph.  
  
Today, the sixth paragraph is long and full of numbers. Raven hates reading numbers the most, since she has to stop, go all the way to the end and work backwards to figure out if she should say fifty thousand or five. There’s names, too, half of them long like Ozymandias and the other half spelled with weird silent letters. It is not going to be a _fun_ paragraph.  
  
There are five ahead of her, and so while the other five are reading aloud to the class, liquid and quick like rushing water, she practices under her breath, touching each word as she mutters it. It’s painful slow going, and she hates this. Hates reading out loud, hates reading to other people. Hates reading.  
  
There are five ahead of Raven but Alex got punched in the throat by an Enderman, and the teacher skips over her, says her name, and when Raven starts reading the teacher says, “The fourth paragraph, please pay more attention."  
  
Her cheeks heating with shame, Raven begins again. Unpracticed, the words are sharp rocks in her mouth, slow and stammered, each one tumbling out. She can hear the titters the other students are suppressing, and she falters but she will not be defeated. So she takes a deep breath at the next blessed comma and presses on, ignoring someone elbowing their seatmate to get them to stop. A period, a brief parole between agonizing sentences, and a capital letter she can’t quite remember at first. But she does, because she is Raven fucking Branwen and she will do this, even if she has to sound each word out, even if twice she reaches the end of the word and realizes it was wrong. Still she presses on, the letters in her eyes and out her mouth without touching her brain in between, no idea what she is reading any more.  
  
Four sentences in, less than half the paragraph, the teacher interrupts with, “Thank you, Raven. Qrow?”  
  
Next to her, Qrow lifts his head from the book, blinks bleary hungover eyes, and says, -no, _reads_, “The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one other such victory would utterly undo him.” He goes on about something, whatever’s written on the page, but Raven neither understands nor cares. She is consumed with his voice, rough and low as he reads aloud as easy as anyone else in the class even though he hasn’t done it any longer than she has. Even though this is the fifth paragraph and he should be reading the seventh. That doesn’t matter to him, _apparently_, he’s become like everyone else in the class who doesn’t need to count and practice.  
  
She folds her arms and hides her face in her elbow, feverish with humiliation and no small bit of envy. Everyone around can see, she might as well shout it to the whole class, that she tried her best and it wasn’t good enough. That she wasn’t good enough, that she is a failure. There’s no coming back from it now, not when the teacher looks at her with such pity Raven can’t meet her eyes.  
  
Raven doesn’t move, not when Qrow finishes the paragraph and Steve’s high piping tenor starts with whatever this old dead man did next. She doesn’t move when Qrow’s hand sneaks on her knee under the desk. She stays in the dark hot cave she’s built of arms and shame, flooded with salt water, until class is over. Only when Summer and Taiyang cross the room, only when Tai’s hands are warm on her shoulders does she rise.  
  
He wraps his arms around her as Qrow sweeps Raven’s stuff in her bag. “You’d think they’d find a less dumb translation,” Taiyang says to her, clumsy attempt at comfort. He shakes his head when she doesn’t answer. “Never mind, let’s go get lunch.”  
  
“Tai, Raven, if you go back to the room and clear space, we can eat there,” Summer suggests. “Me and Qrow will get the food.”  
  
It’s a transparent excuse to keep her out of the cafeteria, made even more blatant when Qrow adds, “Yeah, the crowd’s too much for me today.” Qrow only admits that weakness to save Raven’s face.  
  
She’ll take it, because there is no alternative. Raven failed, and now she must eat the bitter fruit of her failure, flee back to her lair and lick her wounds.  
  
At least she won’t be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What Qrow reads is taken from Plutarch's _Life of Pyrrus_ because reading ancient translations of even more ancient boring books is a very special hell I cannot devise on my own.


	26. Abandoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The puppy lives.

The room is empty when they return, and Raven is furious.  
  
Not at first. First, she is panicking, hiding it with the tells Taiyang has learned all too well. First she is stalking the perimeter, examining the exits, checking under beds and behind doors subtly. The note is stuck to the light switch, where a sensible person would find it, but nobody ever won money on Branwen common sense.  
  
“Went to see the puppy movie,” Taiyang reads aloud. He owes Summer for falling on that grenade; he’s not going anywhere near that movie until he gets at least three signed affidavits that the dog survives. “Might grab dinner after. Don’t wait up.”  
  
“They left,” Raven says, her hand closing around the hilt of her sword. “_Qrow_ left.” Anger’s dripping off her words, thick and heavy and Taiyang cannot see the details of what she’s trying to hide.  
  
“I guess they wanted to have a date night too,” Taiyang offers, watching Raven pace from window to closet door and back, her fingers tapping on the pommel. Watching Raven fight to not open a portal and rip Qrow back where he belongs.  
  
“They were supposed to stay here,” Raven says. She says they but she means Qrow. Qrow was supposed to stay where she left him, wait for her to come back. Taiyang does not defend the other two, does not point out that Raven and he were just out on a date night of their own.  
  
That’s not the point.  
  
On her next circuit, when she is within arms’ reach, he touches her arm. She looks up at him, fire in her eyes, on her tongue. “He left me,” she says, and behind the fire is icy fear.  
  
Taiyang loves his girlfriend. But he loves his partner, too, and he won’t take Raven’s side against Qrow any sooner than he’ll tell her she’s treating him badly. No, the key to living with the twins is to keep your mouth shut and try to keep them from flying off half-cocked.  
  
So he draws her close, her arms around his neck and his hand in her hair. “Summer’s with him,” he reminds her. “They’ll come back.”  
  
“You don’t know that,” she says, and he does not know what she fears more. Qrow finding trouble -which is an entire digression he won’t take right now- or Qrow simply deciding to never return.  
  
He doesn’t remind her that Qrow is only ever a thought and a wave away, that Qrow is devoted to her on a frankly unhealthy level. That he at least is here, that he loves her. This is some weird Branwen-flavored he doesn’t even _know_ what, he doesn’t even know where to start.  
  
All he knows is to hold her, until Qrow and Summer come back laughing. They come back, of course, and by then Raven is so mad she can barely speak, so mad Summer flips her hood up out of self-preservation. It would be easy to think Raven over-reacting, think her cruel even.  
  
Easy, if Tai hadn’t held her through an hour and more, helpless while she worried the collar of his shirt and wondered if she’d finally been abandoned.


	27. Ransom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains hostage-taking and Spanish

Summer will absolutely negotiate with terrorists. She doesn’t care what Raven says, if she can avoid bloodshed by any power given to her, she _will_, future consequences left until tomorrow. If someone were to, say, jam a gun in the soft spot under Qrow’s jaw? She would cheerfully hand over anything she was asked.  
  
The problem is that she doesn’t have any artifacts, let alone a lamp. Not even a flashlight, and she can’t think what the woman could possibly mean, can’t think about anything but the tiny movement of Qrow’s throat when he swallows.  
  
Next to her, Raven is still as a Medusa’s victim, attempting to kill their enemy with sheer willpower. It’s not working but she’s trying. “Give us _time_,” she says, and Summer doesn’t know how her voice is so steady. “We’ll find it, bring it to you.”  
  
“With an army?” the villainess says, face locked in a malicious sneer. “No, I think I’d better not give you reason to come back.”  
  
There is a bead of nervous sweat on Qrow’s temple, creeping down the side of his face.  
  
Raven stops breathing.  
  
Summer tries to close her eyes, turn her face, but Qrow is looking at her, and she cannot take that from him.  
  
The villainess pulls the trigger between one heartbeat and the next loud in her ears.  
  
Nothing happens, and Qrow smiles. He mouths something at Summer, something she can’t parse.  
  
The woman curses, pulls the trigger again. There is only the click of a jammed gun. Next to Summer, Raven starts breathing again.  
  
“Chupa mantequilla de mi _culo_,” the woman spits, throwing Qrow to the ground. He folds into a ball, his hands over his head.  
  
From fifty feet behind them, Taiyang’s gun cracks. He wouldn’t risk a headshot, wouldn’t risk anything when a death-spasm could squeeze the trigger. But now, with Qrow safely on the floor and a clear shot at center mass…  
  
Raven laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and Summer laughs with her as they pull Qrow to his feet, as Taiyang double-taps to confirm the kill, as they walk away without a scratch.


	28. Beaten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'mma be honest with you, chief, there's probably _something_ in here and I just can't see it anymore.

The teacher wants Raven to stay after class, and Qrow stays too. She knew he would, didn’t bother to ask him. Didn’t think to ask him. Would she ask her own arm to not wander off without her?  
  
Olive wants to talk about her paper. Qrow interrupts, claims that’s his work, that he wrote Raven’s name at the top so when he wrote hers over her own she’d at least get some credit. Qrow steps closer, apologizing, begging forgiveness. He’s not very good at that, and it sells the bit. Raven lets him move in front of her. Hide her.  
  
This is what Qrow does, take their punishment. Olive doesn’t believe him at first but Qrow never lies, and Raven’s such an attentive student next to his sloppy nonchalance.  
  
Olive isn’t happy, not in the least, and tells Qrow to stay there, tells him this is absolutely unacceptable. Qrow shoves his hands in his pockets and mumbles, “I said I was sorry,” the perfect picture of guilt. Olive sweeps out of the room, forgetting about Raven now that Qrow’s broken some rule so terrible that Ozpin’s authority is required.  
  
This is how it goes, this is how it always goes. Qrow is the eternal disappointment, the source of all possible fuckups. Cursed. Next to him Raven is the good one, the well-behaved one, the clever one, and for every punishment Qrow earns Raven is given equal reward.  
  
They are one entity to so many people, QrowandRaven, RavenandQrow. Does anyone notice that Qrow takes the credit for Raven’s mistakes, every time? Do they really believe she is as perfect and blameless as Qrow claims? How can they, when she’s so weak?  
  
It was never a calculated ploy, not like some of their other secrets. It was always Raven too weak to endure where Qrow sets his jaw and looks up with death in his eyes. It’s always Raven too fragile and Qrow’s arm around her shoulders, hard with muscle, crossed with the memory of scars.  
  
Raven tries, Raven fails, and Qrow hands her what he worked for. Raven tries, Raven succeeds, and Raven brings back the spoils of her victory to Qrow, and maybe one day she’ll be strong enough to protect him in turn.  
  
That would be nice, she thinks. Let him know how it feels to have someone else bleed for you, to press ice against bruises you earned on someone else’s body. Let him watch from the shadows as someone takes your punishment again and again and again, let him taste his own blood, bitten from his lip. One day, she will be strong enough. One day, it won’t be her fault.


	29. Numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains Lannister-style incest

Their first night as a team, Taiyang and Summer learn three things. Qrow doesn’t know how to spell his own name, Raven only eats about six foods, and the two of them are sixteen and _married._  
  
The third one is as obvious as it is unstated, from the way they build a pillow fort to sleep in, braided around each other. The second turns out to be Raven’s very understandable aversion to putting things she doesn’t recognize in her mouth, at least until Qrow’s played test subject.  
  
The name thing comes out all in a rush when Qrow, more than a little drunk, confesses that he spells his name with a Q to make it easy to pick out since they didn’t actually know how to read until Ozpin accepted them. From there, Raven ends up explaining the tribe they grew up in, a little, just enough that Taiyang and Summer don’t want to ask more.  
  
After that, the married teenager thing makes a little more sense. Raven doesn’t say, exactly, that what she calls a tribe is some kind of creepy cult, but it fits. The isolation, the weird rituals, how they didn’t have a last name until they came to Beacon (and Qrow still only answers to Mr. Branwen when Raven reminds him to.) How Qrow defers to Raven’s choices in every decision they make and Raven gives him first pick of anything in her hands. Most weird cults with teenage brides that Tai has heard of, they get married to dirty old men, but he’s got enough tact to not mention it. And they are most definitely newly-wed, since they are not nearly as subtle about the banging as they think.  
  
Taiyang and Summer are supremely gentle with them, by unspoken agreement. It’s not a pleasant childhood written in their bones; Tai can read too many nights with sleep for dinner, clothes never warm enough, walls never strong enough, and Summer can see the hole where loving parents should be. Some children are raised by a village, she tells Taiyang, surrounded by twenty parents or more.  
  
These two grew up always somebody else’s problem.  
  
It’s six months in, and they’re sitting on the windowseat, watching the rain. Summer’s off talking to Ozpin and Qrow’s off returning a book to Professor Goodwitch’s TA. The glass is cold but Raven’s mouth is warm when she presses a kiss to the side of Taiyang’s neck.  
  
And it’s not entirely unexpected, definitely not unwanted, but Taiyang was raised with manners so he says, “What about Qrow?”  
  
“What about Qrow?” Raven echoes, lifting her head to look up at him and he could drown in her eyes.  
  
“I would rather _not_ get my nose broken by your husband,” Taiyang says, though he’d count it worth it. Her fingers are trailing over his skin, setting nerves to a skittering electric warmth.  
  
Raven tips her head, birdlike, says, “He’s not my husband.”  
  
Raven and Qrow have the same birthdate on all their paperwork, Summer theorized out loud once that they didn’t know when exactly they were born, so they picked the same date. The alternative comes to Taiyang in an icy numb rush, a heartbeat before Raven says, “He’s my twin.”


	30. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, I did set Qrow on fire but this is all aftermath.

When they let the rest of the team in, Qrow is awake but laying in the hospital bed like he’s _supposed_ to be. The room is bright and cool, so different than the dark close tents they grew up in, and Raven approves of the sterile cleanliness of it. There are beeping machines and shiny instruments laid out in case they’re needed, clean water and more than enough soap, things people in the kingdoms take for granted.  
  
Even after three years, Raven does not. Raven still marvels at the years of study and labor that went into this room, so many people doing so much to make her little brother well. Summer goes straight to Qrow’s side but Raven makes an inventory of the room first, locating the exits and the emergency supplies, moving the cup of ice closer to Qrow. Taiyang doesn’t come inside, thought she knows he wants to; he leans against the doorjamb, keeping watch.  
  
That wraps a yellow candleflame around her heart, because he’s doing it for her. Because with him there, she doesn’t have to worry about anything but Qrow bandaged and blistered. She can sit with her back to the door, across from Summer, and that is a gift more precious than gold Taiyang has given to her.  
  
Summer has Qrow’s hand folded in one of hers, the other on top of the oxygen mask tight against his face, and says, “how are you doing, my hero?” and Raven could love her for that alone.  
  
Qrow wants to _be_ a hero, more than Raven does, wants to save people from monsters. She wants him to do that, to be that, even though she’d rather he stay safe with her, because she cannot be satisfied when he hungers.  
  
And she holds onto his smile under the fogged plastic, the faint pink tracing up his neck, because that has to be worth everything he endured. It has to be worth the burns across his skin and in his lungs, the soot and the smoke still grey in his hair. It has to be worth his blood ground so deep in the lines of her palms it will never wash out.


	31. Embrace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all, folks!

After graduation, after Qrow says he doesn’t want to go home, after Taiyang asks her to stay with him, after Summer smiles with soft silver eyes and asks Raven what she wants to do, _after,_ Raven flees.  
  
She goes high, of course, she always goes high, and the highest point in Beacon is Ozpin’s office. Ozpin who’s spent four years teaching her to read and grocery shop and who never shames her for the cache of food in her closet. Ozpin who’s always had time to spare for her, who taught her how to bake cookies and make tea, who intervened on her behalf again and again when the soft city-folk blamed her for her survival instincts. Ozpin who gave her a slanted cross necklace at the end of her first year, the first gift anyone but Qrow had ever given her, who’s given her nothing but kindness.  
  
His door is unlocked, it always is, but she wasn’t expecting him to be in his office this late, frowning at paperwork. She wasn’t expecting him to come from behind his desk and ask her what is wrong. She never expected collapsing against his chest, confession torn from her heart, her spine, as she spills at his feet the whole truth. The tribe, and the huntsmen, and why she and Qrow came here. How they hated Qrow so much when he was a child, and she will never understand why. How now that they are supposed to go back, Qrow doesn’t want to.  
  
Raven’s an easy crier, and she hates it, hates her face hot and wet and unable to hide, her breath catching around words forcing their way out. Hates how everyone around her rushes to shut her up, to make her _stop_ because she’s making them uncomfortable. Hates that she’s sobbing into Ozpin’s scarf now, ruining everything she worked for so hard, repaying his kindness with a truth that didn’t need to be a needle to his eyes and yet it is, forcing them open, forcing him to see.  
  
And when she stops, when she runs out of words and water, when all that is left of her is shaking shoulders and sinking dread, there is a soft touch at her cheek. Ozpin tips her face up and wipes the tears from it like he would a child’s, like he would his daughter’s, she imagines. Nobody has ever touched her like Ozpin has before, love without lust, and she does not know what it means, does not know what he asks in return.  
  
“You and your brother will always have a second home with me,” he says, kindly. “Together or seperate, for a day or a decade. And if you choose to nest elsewhere, I will be happy, because that means you have found somewhere you are happy.”  
  
“You don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head. “Qrow doesn’t want to go back and I know why but,” she swallows, daring to voice aloud for the first time, “they’re still my family.”  
  
“Oh, Raven, _hrafn,_” he says, the weird way he sometimes pronounces her name with an extra sound at the start, the way only Ozpin ever says it and it sounds nothing like the ill-omened birds. “You can go back, without him. You’re strong enough without him. You are enough. It is your choice, and your choice alone.”  
  
He is wrong but she cannot bear to correct him. He is wrong and she has no choice. She came her to confess, to force Qrow to return with her, but she made a fatal error. Raven never expected Ozpin to _forgive_ them.  
  
“My place is with my brother,” she says. The last four years he’s followed her lead every time, and if she pushed him, if she left, he would follow. He would hate her but he would follow. Four years of her making every choice for the two of them and she will allow him the final greatest one. “If he stays, I’ll stay with him, whatever makes him happy.”  
  
Ozpin smiles at her, and she is always surprised when she realizes his eyes are not green. “I’m proud of you,” he says, first time anyone has ever said that.  
  
“For being _weak_?” she snaps, because the first time someone has said that and it’s her failure, her weakness, unwilling to be parted from her twin, unable to be hated by him.  
  
“For choosing not to hurt him,” Ozpin says. “I know what sacrifice you are making, what you are losing.”  
  
“How,” she demands, because of all the things Ozpin has spoken to her of, his family has never been one of them. Impossible as it is, there’s no evidence against him springing from the ground, fully grown, to become headmaster of Beacon.  
  
Ozpin doesn’t stop smiling but his eyes are so sad. “It’s what I would lose, if you left me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
